In a telephone briefing on Tuesday, [Col. Steven H. Warren, the United States military spokesman in Baghdad,] said that coalition forces had recovered Islamic State leaflets in the nearby city of Falluja urging its fighters — if they lose control of the city — to impersonate Iraqi security forces and commit atrocities. “Some acts that they’re instructed to do on this document include blowing up mosques, killing and torturing civilians and breaking into homes while dressed as I.S.F. fighters,” Colonel Warren said, referring to Iraqi security forces. “They do all this to discredit the I.S.F.”

Colonel Warren called the instructions in the leaflets “the behavior of thugs, behavior of killers, the behavior of terrorists.”

Colonel Warren also tweeted the "Islamic State leaflet" and its translation:

COL Steve Warren Verified account @OIRSpox

ISIL fighters ordered to dress as ISF and commit atrocities before fleeing Fallujah.

One would think that the behavior the Islamic State displays in its own propaganda videos is argument enough to condemn it. By using obviously fake IS documents to condemn the Islamic State the U.S. military creates the opposite effect. That the U.S. needs fake evidence to let the Islamic State look bad actually makes it look better than it is. This not only in the eyes of its followers.

Update Dec 23, 3:45am

The NYT, quoted above, has now changed its piece without issuing a correction note. The text now says:

In a telephone briefing on Tuesday, Colonel Warren said that coalition forces had recovered what he said were Islamic State leaflets in the nearby city of Falluja urging its fighters — if they lose control of the city — to impersonate Iraqi security forces and commit atrocities.

The authenticity of the leaflets could not be independently confirmed, and experts on the Islamic State were debating their validity after the coalition publicized them on Tuesday.

The NYT first repeated the military propaganda of the fake leaflet without any doubt or checking of its authenticity. It now says that there is a "debate" about the genuineness of the document. There is no "debate". The experts all say that the document is fake. This is - if at all - a "debate" about the earth being flat. It is another low that the NYT can even not admit that it has again been taken in by military's propaganda.

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

It is difficult to determine how much has been spent on the Zarqawi campaign, which began two years ago and is believed to be ongoing. U.S. propaganda efforts in Iraq in 2004 cost $24 million, but that included extensive building of offices and residences for troops involved, as well as radio broadcasts and distribution of thousands of leaflets with Zarqawi's face on them, said the officer speaking on background. &

One internal briefing, produced by the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, said that Kimmitt had concluded that, "The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date."

Of course most humiliating, once again the Shiite forces under command of Iranians are doing the heavy lifting in reconquering the city in Anbar province: Ramadi’s dirty little secret in the war against IS. However, this is not mentioned in articles sourced in Russia and Iran ... more >>

It's not really about making ISIL look bad, it's about getting the local population to distrust and ultimately attack the Iraqi government security forces. Although the sectarian killings in Iraq help with that anyway, and this is the plan to exacerbate that tension.

Why keep pretending that the US Empire is less evil than it really is ? Why let US evil off the hook ? Why mitigate US Empire evil ?

Another example of the evil US empire spreading lies to try to create murderous chaos. Even while they are "supposedly" working with the Iraqi government.

The US badly needs a man who stops all these US-chaosmakers, al these US-murderers.

"We have spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that, frankly, ... if we could have spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges and all of the other problems, our airports and all of the other problems we have, we would have been a lot better off -- I can tell you that right now," Trump said. "We have done a tremendous disservice not only to the Middle East -- we've done a tremendous disservice to humanity. The people that have been killed, the people that have been wiped away, and for what? It's not like we had victory. It's a mess. The Middle East is totally destabilized, a total and complete mess."

U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said on Sunday the Middle East would be more stable if Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein were still in power in Libya and Iraq, saying it's "not even a contest".

Trump mentioned the countries in comparison to current efforts to drive Syrian President Bashar al-Assad out of power.

"You can make the case, if you look at Libya, look at what we did there, it's a mess," Trump said on NBC.

"If you look at Saddam Hussein with Iraq, look what we did there, it's a mess. It's going to be the same thing" in Syria, he said.

Asked by NBC's Chuck Todd if the Middle East would be more stable with Gaddafi and Saddam in power, Trump replied, "Of course it would be."

Same shite, different bucket. The Empire again making appearances seem what they are not for military-financial gain in the chaos that follows. They stalked Syria until the opportune moment to pull the trigger and turn the screw, this bit of propaganda looks A LOT more desperate though.

@5
Haha, Trump saying loads, commanding huge audience, paying next to nothing for it. A character beyond the normal rules of campaigning. Here, however, he is really going to draw the line in between him and warhawk Hilary. He'll destroy her head-2-head if it goes that way. Funnily enough, he'll draw in a fair percentage of neutral voters, along with those he's already spellbound through fear, who just simply want to hear something anti-war. We have a year of this ahead. Some issues will be given a good airing I imagine.

When two liar accuse each other of being liars, which one should we believe?

The hoax activities described in the leaflet are exactly the same that the "moderate" rebels in Syria have been using from the very start of the uprising. Why should we suddenly stop believing everything AlJazeera, Al Arabiya and all of the Western mainstream media have been telling us for the last 4 or 5 years?

I watched that interview on Sunday. Trump is given a lot of air time more than he warrants but it is great to hear him say things plainly.

In the Democratic Debate O'Malley attacked Clinton numerous times. He brought up Clinton's glee at the downfall of Gaddafi. I realy wanted him to use the quote "We Came, We Saw, He died" but he did not use it. Perhaps he did not know the quote of the top of his head. I hope he goes back to it in the future.

If that was Trump he would not have let up. He would use the quote, I hope.

I helped run political campaigns up to the Congressional level for the Democrats before I got the hell out of politics. I do not know if that matters at all. Clinton will have a great machine behind her but I do not think that all of labor will support her. There are grumblings from Sanders backers for him to run as an independent. Labor and their Working American wing are the primarily workhorse of Democratic elections. If they do not back Clinton or do it halfheartedly then she is toast. She will lose in the North East. I can not imagine Trade Unions (electricians, pipefitters, plumbers, carpenters, painters..etc..) will support her. They A LOT provide the money and a lot of manpower in elections.

She is extremely vulnerable to Trump. I do not believe the polls for one second. I live in an extremely blue area and everyone I talked to that is under 25 will vote for Trump before Clinton. Bernie is their first choice but he needs to accept that politics is dirty or keep O'Malley around to attack Clinton for him.

Back to his leaflet. I agree with other posters who say this is more about sowing distrust of the Iraqi Security Forces then it is ISIS. The US SUPPORTS ISIL, Turkey, Israel and the Gulf States. All information coming out of the US needs to be seen through that perspective.

Does anyone else think that Clinton is very vulnerable to any candidate that wants to use Hersh's latest report. Was Clinton in power during this time period? Even if she was not she is still culpable since she is not backing off of that Libya debacle.

I can imagine Trump calling her a liar or incompetent. I hope that O'Malley goes at her in a similar fashion.

I would really like to see a Sanders/O'Malley ticket. I do not think that Sanders would run for a second term and O'Malley would be the heir apparent and if they lose he would run against Warren in 2020. (I'm not a huge Warren, her foreign policy positions are/were terrible)

Bulgaria has made arms deals worth Euro 29 million (completed) out of a total ~ Euro 85 million. These arms were ordered by Saudi Arabia and delivered onwards to Syrian rebels via a Saudfi-Arabian cargo 747 aircraft registration TF-AMP. This situation continued until June 2015 at which point the aircraft was transferred to Air Bridge Cargo. This appears to be a Russian air cargo company with its main hub in Russia. Interesting. Does this mean a Russian company has been involved in supplying arms to the like of ISIS?

Ah, the plot sickens. Sounds like the US propaganda in Iraq is on par with the propaganda being spun in the US media.
I check this blog to see what the MOON has shed light on. Sometimes I read what the others say primarily because it sounds like my neighbors ... and that may NOT(?) be a good thing: msm with a twist.

Since MoA mentioned Aymenn Jawad al Tammimi at this point, it would be worthwhile for commenters here to know that he works as a Research Fellow at Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum and also at a private university in Israel. How experienced he is, I do not know, but he is in his early 20s so I might suggest his experience is not as "deep" as Anand Gopal's experience with the Middle East.

For all we know, he may be just a more sophisticated version of Bellingcat or the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, collecting Islamic State documents from various sources and taking them at face value as proof that Islamic State is a state in the making, without considering perhaps that they might represent a Potemkin-village construct.

It would be as if future archaeologists were to discover old Game of Thrones scripts and decide from those that the kingdoms and the characters of the TV series really had existed.

American Exceptionalists live in the past, whether real or imagined, and their lives' duty is to reenact it faithfully except for a gratuitously novel twist from time to time. If they love the smell of SNAFU in the morning, it's because it's the smell of familiarity, therefore victory.

He, Russian political establishment (or Deep State) and the oligarchy have embraced American political concept euphemistically called - neoliberalism. In recent press conference he had announced cuts in social spending. Health care system will be "insurance based" as he said.
Despite the polls I do not believe he and those around him have popular support in the Russian's masses.
I am waiting for a day when Moscow will declare Zionist settler state as their "most faithful ally".

You're right; it's a way to weaken support among the populations for the Iraqi central govt. Other supporters of stability and territorial integrity are also under fire-- like Hezbollah. The Israeli killing of a Hezbollah leader obviously. Also US is going after Hezbollah's monetary support:

"US leaders have launched a new effort to weaken the Hezbollah organization, which provides social welfare for millions of people in Lebanon. The US Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency have arrested a number of people around the world, alleging that they are helping Hezbollah to transfer funds. According to the Wall Street Journal, individuals in as diverse places as Lithuania, Colombia, and Canada are facing extradition because they allegedly assisted an organization whose members are each day on the front lines fighting ISIS. Previously in 2011, the United States shut down the Lebanese Canadian Bank, alleging that it was doing business transactions with members of Hezbollah." --Caleb Maupin
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/21/washington-quietly-targets-isis-foes/

Meanwhile, what happened to going after ISIS support? No more oil truck bombing? Is the border still open to supplies & reinforcements? Does anybody know if the bombing of the oil trucks has stopped? Last I heard the KRA asked Russia to stop bombing their area, but as far as I know the central Iraqi govt didn't.

This incompetence is good news, because it is the force that will end the U.S. empire. And the incompetence grows, as it must, as the self-censorship and contradictory stupidity is institutionalized in the U.S. and Western academic systems. I mean, there are some very smart and truth-telling grad students in U.S. academia, but those sorts don't get the real professor jobs. ...

Now that Russia is close to eradicate the Islamists in Syria, a new wave of anti-Russia accusation of "war crimes" and "barrel bombings" is growing. Saudi Arabia's repulsive attacks on Yemeni civilians as well as US and Saudi attacks on hospitals in Yemen where 4 millions Yemenis are displaced are simply 'collateral casualties'
The western media are sickening.

I just recently discovered MoA but it's now at the top of my daily "must read" list. Insightful views in plain English - what more could we ask for?

So it's perhaps ironic that i'm going to have a minor disagreement with him here. It appears to me that this propaganda effort is not to make IS look "good" (by comparison to Iraq forces) but to continue & reinforce Washington's consistent line that IS is SO EVIL and also SO UNSTOPPABLE that they're the most fearsome force on earth. And to underscore the exceptional threat posed by this (made in USA) group we've been (pretending to be) attacking them non-stop for 18 mos now and they're as fearsome as ever!

IS *is* different in that they have almost a cartoon quality about them. IE: if Walt Disney were to invent a Muslim terrorist organization that would be guaranteed to strike fear into the quivering hearts of every man, woman & child in Amerika wouldn't it look & act *exactly* like IS is reputed to act. I read recently that IS issues something like 35 video "press releases a day! All of which are apparently professionally done. They obviously have friends in high places.

There is the possibility that with the use of these fake documents, the US is not only trying to discredit Iraq government security forces in the eyes of the Iraqi public, it is also trying to garner Iraqi public support for another US-led invasion and occupation. This would have the effect among others of sending more ISIS takfiris and Iraqi refugees into Syria, wiping out the gains made by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies and blocking the Assad government in its reconstruction efforts, and possibly also into Iran.

"He set up a broad terror network on the Golan, and it is good that he returned his soul to his creator," Shaked told Israel's Army Radio, without elaborating on any Israeli role.

The Assad loyalist National Defence Forces in Jaramana, a bastion of government support and home to many of Syria's Druze minority as well as Christians, mourned Qantar on its Facebook page.

"Two Israeli warplanes carried out the raid which targeted the building in Jaramana and struck the designated place with four long-range missiles," the NDF said. [Distance Jaramana to border with Lebanon is approx. 20 mi. - Oui]

"China and Iraq have decided to elevate their ties to a strategic partnership. The news comes after a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in downtown Beijing on Tuesday.

Xi said China supports Iraq's efforts in protecting its national independence and sovereignty. He said China is willing to deepen cooperation at different levels in all fields, including security."

I think Iraq is going to say bye-bye to the US soon. The political winds are shifting away from the private finance led austerity and towards communist/socialist led development. The ongoing flailing of dying empire like the fake IS document just increases the wind against it.

Stigmatizing is that your level?
If you’re an American citizen and if you don’t take this election very seriously and do everything to end this US-made-mess, then the world has all reason to hate you.
Go on stigmatizing: Look at this video and how do you call these US-‘people’ who are ‘engaging’?
Classic What?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEOMchDJOus&feature=youtu.be
("Collateral Murder": U.S. Apache helicopters killing journalists and other civilians in Baghdad)

Agreed. Pipes' crew were circulating a piece denying Rohingyas were being persecuted in Myanmar and blaming them, the victims, for their fate. You really, really have to hate Muslims to go that low. Nothing and nobody associated with Pipes should be trusted.

This is a spooky move. Who faked this doc and why? The implication seems clear to me - we're supposed to presume IAF/Shia militias faked this, presumably to explain the massacres they have planned, and just goofed up with an "obvious" fake. The same seems clear to others. One response to Warren's tweet: "No, these documents are fake. More U.S. military propaganda to cover up murderous abuses against Sunnis by #Iraq's Shiite militias." Planned or not (and it usually does accompany terrorist gains or losses of cities) ISIS will feel emboldened to go ahead and committ false-flag massacres on their way out, now that the blame is "obvious." More stabbing Iraq in the back, whoever drafted it. (Monitor post forthcoming, thanks for the notice, B)

I'm wondering if the fake IS message was the result of Col Warren suffering a panic attack? IS is, after all, a Yankee creation and the Yankees and the Neanderthal Eurotrash haven't stopped whining about Russia's "anti-ISIS" campaign since it began. Both the Yanks and the Turks have displayed utter contempt for Iraq and Iraqis and imo some anti-IS-US blowback was almost inevitable.

China said recently that it was "watching events in Iraq closely" and now we hear via CCTV & Xinhua (see psychohistorian | Dec 23, 2015 12:53:11 AM | 35), that China's interest in Iraq has moved from merely "watching" events to (possibly) "changing" events. It's more likely than not that China flagged its Iraq intentions to the Yankees before going public with its new position. So Warren and his bosses probably knew that their IS pets in Iraq were in trouble before We heard about it.

I believe that IS is as gutless and full of shit as their civilian-killing US and "Israeli" sponsors; and that the "flight of the Iraqi Army from IS (leaving all their weapons behind)" many moons ago was a US-engineered publicity stunt aimed at making IS seem more Fearsome than they are. So one could make the case that Col Warren panicked and did the first stupid thing that came into his head to further the IS = Fearsome Myth, as b has deduced.

The update was eerily predictable since they did the exact same thing previously. From the Washington Pravda article I linked @ 2

Filkins, reached by e-mail, said that he was not told at the time that there was a psychological operations campaign aimed at Zarqawi, but said he assumed that the military was releasing the letter "because it had decided it was in its best interest to have it publicized." No special conditions were placed upon him in being briefed on its contents, he said. He said he was skeptical about the document's authenticity then, and remains so now, and so at the time tried to confirm its authenticity with officials outside the U.S. military.

So the stenographers at Pravda doubted the authenticity of the document but uncritically repeated it, and all the nonsense about Zarqawi & foreign fighters, for as long as necessary.

Which is it? Well, they get framed here for plotting massacres, snipers, etc. ... by the US, but so poorly it seems they wanted us to find it and show them up ... when the same type of crimes might actuallt happen soon, and have plagued Syria's cities for 5 years, usually blamed on "Shabiha" ... how clear really is the record of Shia massacres in Iraq? Couldn't a lot of them be mis-attributed al Qaeda crimes? I suspect so - maybe not most of them, but enough to matter (but I'm no expert on the Iraq side of the border or before 2011)